1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus having a conveying belt which absorbs a recording sheet fed by a paper feed section to record on the recording sheet absorbed by the conveying belt.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, in a recording apparatus which conveys a recording sheet by driving a belt that absorbs the recording sheet onto the belt surface by static electricity, a power feed roller abutting against the belt surface has generated electric charges on the belt surface.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-143026 discloses an arrangement for generating electric charges on a belt by applying a voltage to a driving roller which drives the belt, as an arrangement without the use of a power feed roller.
Meanwhile, the recording apparatus is required to correct skew feeding of a recording sheet before conveying the recording sheet to an area opposite to a recording head in order to prevent the recording sheet from being conveyed in an inclined condition when the recording head starts a recording operation. In a recording apparatus having a belt conveying section which conveys the recording sheet absorbed on the belt surface, a paper feed section has been provided with a guide member for aligning both widthwise edges of the recording sheet in order to prevent an occurrence of skew feeding in a paper feed stage. Moreover, in another arrangement, a registration roller pair has been provided to correct skew feeding of the recording sheet upstream from the belt conveying section.
In recent years, the recording apparatus has been required to support recording sheets of various sizes such as business card, A4, A3, rolled letter paper, and other sizes. In the above-described arrangement in which the paper feed section is provided with the guide member for aligning both widthwise edges of the recording sheet, the guide member is effective to reduce the occurrence of skew feeding, in the case of feeding a large-sized recording sheet, due to the long dimension of the recording sheet guided by the guide member. On the other hand, in the case of feeding a small-sized recording sheet, the guide member is ineffective to prevent the occurrence of skew feeding because the recording sheet comes off the guide member when the recording sheet is conveyed to the belt conveying section due to the short dimension of the recording sheet guided by the guide member. Moreover, the arrangement provided with the foregoing registration roller pair has a problem that the provision increases the number of parts and the size of apparatus.